A Sacred Debt to Yourself

You take small assignments. You can't know more than you do. You start where you are. It won't go that well, but you do it because you have a sacred honor. You have a debt to yourself, a sacred prearranged debt to yourself to try to bring this work forward.

--Anne Lamott

Ever the genius. A sacred prearranged debt.

I like this so much. It helps me allow space for my writing to take precedence over whatever other debts in my life that I perceive need my attention: financial, time, relational, laundry… Those can wait, even the ones that are sacred in other ways. I will meet them as I can.

But this one -- this one is my own, and no one else can meet it but me.

What You Might Not Know

"A baby is born in a few tough hours, but a mother's birth takes years."

Megan Gogerty

For those of you who are pregnant right now.

For those of you who were once pregnant and then had a baby, and maybe the birth didn't go the way you planned or hoped -- that is to say, every single woman who has ever given birth.

For those of you who read all the natural childbirth books and blogs and stories and visioned the hell out of a birth just like that for yourself, only to end up in recovery with a lower abdominal scar that you never wanted.

Here is what you might not know, what might not come through clearly in all those natural childbirth books and blogs and movies.

When I was pregnant, I chucked out the window "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and read only Ina May Gaskin, Robert Bradley, Pam England. I watched movies filled with ecstatic images of women giving birth naturally in the Black Sea, dolphins swimming nearby. I would birth at home naturally, I would birth not only my baby but also my new self as a mother, and the way I chose to do it would set the tone for the rest of my life in this role.

They don't mean to do it, these natural childbirth educators, but sometimes they convey the unspoken message that if your birth does not go this way, then you are a dud. Ina May Gaskin has a famous quote meant to encourage women in the middle of natural childbirth: "Your body is not a lemon." Your body is an evolutionary genius. You don't need all those medical interventions to give birth.

So when your homebirth turns into a hospital birth via cesarean section, the only thing you can hear is the inverse of her words, echoing coldly down sterile hallways in your mind: "But you? Your body *is* a lemon. Your body failed."

Not only that, but the crowning moment, that unforgettable sensation of your baby slipping out of your body through your sheer effort alone -- that moment whose alchemy would transform you into a mother... well, you missed out on that, too. You lost the rite of passage you dreamed of. Tough shit, kid.

What you might not know is that your birth does not define the kind of mother you will be. I still believe in natural childbirth. I will try for a natural homebirth again next time. But I also know that while birth is profoundly important for both mother and child, it is not the last chance. It feels like it, when you're pregnant or caring for a newborn baby, but it is only the first of a million chances for you to bond with your child, to grow into your new role as a mother, to show your immense love for this new creature. I learned this through grieving the loss of my ideal birth. I learned this through the cadre of powerful mothers whom I met through ICAN, the group that saved my life over and over, starting with the first meeting I attended when my son was four weeks old.

What you might not know, but will learn: your birth does not define you as a mother.

And if your birth doesn't define you, maybe there's no single act or decision that will define you as a mother. Maybe it's only the infinite daily work that you do as a mother that will define you.

Or perhaps you might learn that definitions are useless in the work of mothering. They're the cold comfort that you reach for when you realize that your heart is broken wide open and will never stitch back together. When you feel your heart reach for the women across cultures and time and place who have also mothered, when you cry for children you'll never meet. When you realize that you are wholly not in control of this wide world.

All of those books and theories and labels, they can bolster you or help you find a community of like-minded parents, which absolutely matters. But at the end of the day, there is only you, your child, and the other human beings around you who are helping to bring that child up into the world.

A mother's birth takes years. A mother's birth is never complete. A mother's birth will last the rest of her life.

This is what I didn't know.

(Thanks to Cristina Pippa for introducing me to Gogerty's work.)

Early 90s Music Flashback: I Swear I Left Her Safe and Sound

Richard Marx. Oh Richard. Please don't do it! Don't cut off those lovely 90s locks! We believe in your innocence! We know that it was that no good sheriff!

"Hazard," one of my and my sister's favorites when we were growing up. Two outsiders find comfort in each other, then the female one ends up dead (of course) and the male is the prime suspect (of course). Vaguely reminiscent of some Angelo Badalamenti/Twin Peaks themes (plot and music), the video for this song is tightly woven with the music itself. I tried this one at karaoke last month and it turns out that the song isn't as powerful without the video. Also, no one in the room recognized it. Thank goodness for the internet; otherwise I'd think that I'd made some of these videos up.

Enjoy!

Once. Once.

The needle drops and the old notes play.

In that heartbeat, hearing a song I played a thousand times when it came out, I suddenly hear the echo of all the heartbeats that I've lived since that time.

In the space between each pluck of strings, I feel in my body the difference between who I was then, and who I am now.

It appears that time has passed.

Or so the silver threads say, those twinkles of moonlight amongst the dark brown that flash at my temples as I run my hands through my hair.

My first thought is that I've earned those strands with every hard minute of mothering, but I know that they would have come with the years no matter what. I could just as well have earned them with every laugh, every pleasure, every extra hour of sleep.

2007 doesn’t seem like that long ago, but it was six years ago.

I lived in New York City for ten long years. I moved there when I was 18 going on 19, left when I was 29. My 20s belonged to the glitter in the sidewalks, to the burn of anger as strangers harassed me on the street, to the burn of ambition and passion and uncertainty. I offered up my 20s to that indescribable city and got, in return, friends I will treasure until death do us part, a broken heart three times over, bittersweet memories layered invisibly over blocks and subway tracks and bridges, brushes with fame and fortune, and whisper-thin scars that hint at the witnessing of trauma and devastation.

2007. I've lived in Austin for six years. Let me tell you – six years in Austin does not feel like six years in New York City. New York City makes you earn every single month of your residence. A year in New York is a dense, airless subway car at rush hour in July; with every breath, you question what you are doing in this madhouse while your skin sweats against a stranger's skin. And at the same time, a year in New York is a timeless dream, one of those alchemical days when your timing is perfect, you catch the right train, you encounter the right people, you hear the right song, you fall asleep with a smile.

A year in Austin goes fast. Six years in Austin goes fast. A business built, a film shelved, a novel begun. A marriage compiled, a home made, a son born. Loved ones lost, loved ones found. Hundreds of songs belted at karaoke.

I could be conflating unrelated forces. The way time moves in your 20s with the way New York feels. The way time moves in your 30s with the way Austin feels. Motherhood with grey hair. Maybe time would have moved quickly regardless of where I lived.

And when I write Austin out like that, I see that six years might have moved quickly, but they did not leave without their gifts.

This album, this movie, this cultural moment spanned my last summer in New York and my first autumn in Austin, with a trip to Ireland itself in the sweet center, on our first wedding anniversary, to celebrate a new marriage of dear friends.

Chris and I first saw it in May 2007, and it was love at first viewing. For Chris's birthday in August, we ate piles of famous deli meat at Katz's with friends. Then five of us walked to the Sunshine Cinema on Houston and saw a late showing of "Once." We watched with our hearts open, crying together when it ended, walking through the streets of Soho lit up like starlight, even when we had to jump onto a road barrier to avoid an enormous rat skittering across our path. (Oh, New York.)

And then we were in Ireland, listening to the soundtrack in our rental car, waking up on my birthday in the misty shadow of the Rock of Cashel, dancing with an entire fishing village to celebrate a new marriage.

And then we were in Austin, our new hometown, standing in a crowd of 2,000, listening with our hearts open while Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová sang their hearts out.

And then it was 2013 and, evidently, lifetimes have passed. Did I know they were passing? Have I ever known, in New York, in Austin, anywhere?

Is this what it is to have the privilege of growing older, living a life across the years?

A jet plane roars overhead, shaking the windows.

The almost full pink moon glows low in the night sky, glazing cars, streets, leaves with light.

The needle slips off of the spiraling groove. The music ends.

I come home.

 

Part of me
Has died
And won't return
And part of me
Wants to hide
The part that's burned

Once, once
Knew how to talk to you
Once, once
But not anymore

Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home

Part of me
Has vied
To watch it burn
And the heart of me
Has tried
But look what it's become

Once, once
I knew how to look for you
Once, once
But that was before
Once, once
I would have laid down and died for you
Once, once
But not anymore.

Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home
Hear the sirens call me home

--"Once", by Glen Hansard

Early 90s Music Flashback: Yeah, Uh Huh

Here's a song that I hadn't heard in 20 years when I found it on YouTube. My friend in middle school, Sarah, and I were huge fans of this song. For some reason, we decided that the only appropriate accompanying dance for this song involved the miming of typewriter typing, including the carriage return at the end of the line. We giggled our way through this song and dance at many lunch periods.

Here they are, Midi, Maxi & Efti, with their 1991 hit "Bad Bad Boys." Check those shiny, huge-lapel jackets!